Ricochet
by audreythree
Summary: It did not strike him as particularly ironic that the only person he trusted to help him search for Audrey was Audrey herself. It was tragic. - Post 'Sins of the Fathers' Non-Slash.


'Sins of the Fathers' tag scenes, speculations only

Nathan and Duke, non slash. Some coarse language.

* * *

><p>"I'm done counting."<p>

The shock of the gunshot rang through the hull of the Cape Rouge like being inside a gong.

Nathan opened his jaw as wide as possible, hoping that would clear the stunned deafness from his ears. It didn't really work – but he gradually heard the noise Duke was making, from his own flapping jaw.

"You shot me! You fucking shot me!" He clutched at his chest, trying to crawl away on his back.

No, he hadn't. His finger was on the trigger, but he hadn't pulled it. Of that he was sure. It had taken months to figure out – without the sense of touch in his fingers – how much effort it took to pull that trigger. He'd tightened it to the point that there was no chance of it accidentally going off. It was wound tighter than he was.

And, he'd promised Audrey.

The last wisps of smoke came from Duke's gun, materialized somehow from under a chair, and now discarded across the floor – deck, whatever – as Duke writhed in pain. There was spreading stain of blood on the other man's shirt, shockingly fast.

"Jesus, Nathan –" breathless, and fading. "I didn't do anything to Audrey." Duke grabbed at Nathan's shirt. Like he had to get it out even if they were his last words.

Nathan dropped his gun, and cupped his hand over Duke's chest. Ripped open his shirt and placed his hand flat against the hole there, the blood a thick stream. Pressed down firmly. Right upper quadrant – lung, ribs, possibly pulmonary artery, he couldn't tell. He pulled out his phone and dialed. Ambulance first. Then Laverne – get the Camden cops here, if not the state police. Another officer involved shooting, and Haven was going to get a whole new reputation before long.

"I didn't…"

"Save your breath."

Duke held a bloody hand to his wrist. He couldn't tell it if was frail and weak, or a death grip, but his eyes pleaded for Nathan to listen. Nathan leaned down to hear. If the bullet had nicked Duke's artery, he wasn't going to last for the ambulance to get here.

"Find her," he whispered. "I didn't…"

Duke passed out, his breath leaving him with a fluttering sigh. The paramedics arrived at that moment though, walking in casually – and then turning on the fast forward as soon as they took in the situation. Nathan kept his hand over the wound, as directed, while the other two started on CPR. Chest compressions, and air pumped from a bag into his lungs. Only when they were satisfied with Duke's pulse and breathing did they take over the wound, sealing it properly and loading the patient onto a board.

Board onto gurney, and into the ambulance.

The ambulance backed out down the dock with sirens wailing, while his whole department crowded the dock and the boat, standing around watching him, their Chief – with his hands dripping Duke Crocker's blood, a man he'd made no secret of despising. They stood here watching him, still waiting for direction from him.

While Audrey had clearly been abducted against her will – they just stood there.

_Audrey would have kicked their asses by now._

"Stan, you and Bill secure the boat. No one goes in until the Camden cops get here. The rest of you-" Christ, he would be better off with the Keystone Kops, "follow me."

It did not strike him as particularly ironic that the only person he trusted to help him search for Audrey was Audrey herself. It was goddamn tragic.

"Boss…"

Stan stopped him, looked down significantly at his hands. They were evidence. His weapon was on the floor inside. And there's no way he should be leading the investigation while he under suspicion of shooting the main suspect.

He sent a pair of officers to Audrey's apartment, ahead of him, and let Stan photograph his hands and his clothes. But that was all he would stand still for. He was going to figure this out himself.

* * *

><p>Duke stirred, regretted it. Opened his eyes to the glaring light and bleary colors of a hospital room. Remembered why.<p>

He'd been shot. Nathan had shot him. Came to the boat, insane about something to do with Audrey, pulled his gun on him.

_Nathan had shot him_.

He could really take that personally.

Especially since he had no idea why. He and Nathan had gone at it with each other since they were kids; north and south magnetic poles, opposites, but irresistibly drawn at the same time. They fought, they made up, they fought over something else. Duke had been the bad boy free spirit in school, and yes, he'd tormented Nathan probably beyond bearing. Nathan had been the class president, scholar and athlete, popular with the girls and a stick up his ass the entire time – like the Chief of Police's son was too good for scum like the Crockers.

Fast forward twenty something years, and Duke had honestly believed he was making some progress towards living up to Nathan's impossible standards. Now, he could accuse him of hurting Audrey? Audrey, of all people?

Those fucking ghosts were responsible for this. Somehow. Like a worm inside Nathan's brain, planted there by their fathers' shades – Nathan's first reflex was to blame Duke.

Okay, the whistle was one thing. That looked bad and Duke had no explanation. Pulling out his gun and _shooting him_ was something else entirely. Nathan's first reflex was always to blame Duke, but usually he was willing to listen long enough to haul him down to the station. In front of witnesses.

Duke was not going to start going around killing people to 'save' them from their Trouble. He'd told Nathan that. Nathan and Audrey. He'd never liked his father, _never_ trusted him, and there was no way he was going to murder anyone on his say-so.

Why didn't anyone believe him when he said that?

There was maybe a point where being known as a con man, smuggler and renegade turned into a disadvantage.

Duke tried to turn over, regretted that movement immediately and fell back against the pillow. Moaned.

"You'll live."

Duke blinked, saw Nathan silhouetted against the windows, watching him. "No thanks to you."

"Not me. You caught your own ricochet."

Duke's eyes focused, narrowed enough to see the other man properly. Nathan looked more zombie-like than even when he'd attacked Duke. Which meant… "I take it you haven't found her."

The ricochet was a possibility. Steel-hulled boat and all. Unlikely, but possible. Duke could remember, now, reaching for the gun hidden under the chair, pulling it when he'd seen that tattoo on Nathan's arm. For an instant, to his shame, he'd even believed his dead father's prophecy. Here was his murderer, Audrey's agent.

"The investigation is still active. I'm interviewing… potential witnesses."

_Still_ active? What did that mean? "How long have I been out?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks!" Duke moaned. Oh, fuck. His restaurant was going to be in shambles by the time he got back.

"Your heart stopped, twice. You nearly bled out when the sutures –" Nathan stopped, swallowed the rest of the list. "The state police confirmed that it was your gun, by the way, in case you were wondering." It was not just his opinion.

He had been, but only because Nathan looked worse than Duke felt. Which was going some. As if Nathan would suffer any guilt for shooting him, but…

Two weeks, and he still hadn't found Audrey?

"What the hell, Nathan?" It was a rhetorical question, asked of the room, whatever powers may be. "What are you doing here?" And not out looking for her?

Nathan hesitated before answering. "I fell," with a bitter non-smile. He held up a professionally wrapped wrist. Immobilized.

"I'm sure the wall had it coming."

"I think Laverne relieved me of duty." No irony or humor in his voice at all, despite the words.

"She's about the only one who could." Duke turned back to look at the ceiling. Audrey was missing, really? Really missing? For two weeks? The thought floated somewhere over his head, over his bed, an evil spirit that – if he looked at it directly – would surely break his heart.

"So… these witnesses?"

"One witness."

Duke closed his mouth over his protest, when it dawned on him that Nathan meant him. "I. Was. Not. There."

Nathan nodded. As if he'd expected that answer. "Where were you?"

"On the boat. The whole time." After the coroner left with that boy's body, quite aside from the ghosts, Nathan, Audrey and the rest of the Haven PD had multiple kidnapping and attempted murder charges to deal with, multiple perps, and traumatized victims; and Duke had just faded away. Duke wanted nothing more than oblivion. And to get the blood off his hands. Literally as well as figuratively, though the latter was harder to accomplish. Drank some. Made himself make dinner, thrown it up again. Drank some more.

Nathan nodded again.

"What?" Duke demanded. If Audrey was missing, he was – oh, _shit._ _Audrey_. He had to -.

Some stupid machine beside his bed started squealing like a stepped-on cat.

"Stop it." Nathan was there suddenly, shoving Duke down against the bed with one hand on his shoulder. "You can't move yet, or get up." Duke resisted, but he might as well have been foam rubber for all the strength he could muster. He had something like fourteen different tubes and a dozen wires attached to him in various intrusive and embarrassing ways.

Three nurses invaded the room, fussing and tutting over him. But he and Nathan might as well have been alone.

"What? Tell me."

Nathan chewed it over some, then – "No one at the Gull remembers anything. Didn't see anything, can't even remember being there. We have credit card receipts, we know what they ate, how much they tipped – they don't. No alibis, just nothing there. All their memories…"

"Erased," Duke filled in, when Nathan ran out. Like when the Colorado Kid was killed. Like when Audrey's other incarnations had disappeared? Like when the other Audrey had been erased.

Oh god.

"Someone set me up." The whistle. He had it that morning – and then he couldn't remember. Seeing his father's ghost sort of took up all his attention.

"Someone set me up, too," Nathan said.

The sedatives the nurse pushed into his IV were taking him out fast. Duke wanted more of this conversation, implications swirled around him. All he managed was, "Then they made two mistakes."

* * *

><p>Dwight watched Nathan as he walked out of Duke's room. "You didn't tell him?"<p>

"He has enough to deal with right now."

"That wasn't much of an alibi."

Nathan looked coldly at the tall man. Dwight was a little too used to 'cleaning' people, pushing them verbally or otherwise to his way of thinking. Nathan did not like being pushed around at the best of times. Which this wasn't. "Let me worry about Duke," he said. "Did you go over that list of names?"

Dwight nodded. "Just folks, all of them. Locals. A couple tourists. And no one who attended the Good Shepherd."

"No one with a Trouble there at all?" A random sample of Haven's population would probably turn up at least one or two in a crowd that size. But that wasn't to say the sample was random.

"That we have evidence for being there. Doesn't mean someone didn't pay cash. No security cameras." Dwight shrugged. Duke was the last guy to want video evidence of his activities apparently – so neither was there any evidence of what had happened at the restaurant, or above it in Audrey's apartment that evening.

Nathan suspected he was being prodded along again by Dwight's words. Blame Duke.

"Why are you so eager to hang this on him?"

Dwight's focus narrowed on Nathan. "You didn't see him throw me thirty feet through the air with one hand. That is Trouble. And the ricochet? How much more proof do you need?" Dwight pulled out a pistol from underneath his shirt. Nathan flinched, and made him put it away. They were in a hospital. "I spent the morning at the range. I'm cured."

And Duke carried Dwight's curse now.

Nathan shook his head. "That doesn't mean…" that Duke had anything to do with Audrey's abduction.

"_You _told _me_ about his father, what he said. I'm sorry, Nathan, I know you were friends. But we both know that when a curse is activated – it changes things."

"We weren't friends." Nathan had seen Duke's eyes change as Kyle Hopkins died at his feet. Turn the same color as the boy's and then back again. If Duke started digging up graves now would he bring those ghosts back too? Or was the curse really gone when the Troubled person died by Duke's hand – giving some sort of awful justification for that murder? Hopkins had chosen for himself, but what about the next time?

"Just, watch yourself," Dwight said, and walked away.

* * *

><p>Nathan was asleep in the chair when Duke woke. The light was dim, the windows dark. Visiting hours long gone, no doubt, but if the Chief wanted to keep an eye on a suspect…<p>

Nathan's eyes opened, and Duke wondered if he'd been asleep at all.

"What time is it?"

Nathan checked his phone. "Nearly two."

"Have you slept at all?" Two weeks. How long could a man drive himself like that?

"Vince and Dwight. Don't turn your back on them."

Duke regarded Nathan thoughtfully. What was he saying? Duke felt he understood Vince's action in sending Dwight after the weapons box. As far as Duke was concerned they could have it. And a family legacy in this bloody town was something to be feared, needless to say, particularly when your own father – a cold-blooded murderer – had allied with a religious fanatic and bigoted bully like the Rev to start a crusade against the Troubled.

Was Nathan trying to say he trusted Duke's word over Vince and Dwight? Those two upstanding citizens?

Or maybe it was just the onset of sleep-deprived paranoia.

As if finished a task he'd been assigned, Nathan pushed himself out of the chair. Painfully, Duke would have said of anyone else. Tiredly.

"Stay," Duke said."If you want." Nathan was probably the only one in the world who could sleep comfortably in those chairs.

Nathan sat back down again without a word. His expression was unreadable in the dim shadowed light, but he'd probably worn the same clenched anger for two weeks now. But his shoulders slumped, and his legs stretched out.

It wasn't like Duke was capable of turning his back on anyone, laying here in bed. Less so the one man in town who – for whatever reason – still seemed to prefer that Duke continue breathing. But if Duke needed his back watched, he trusted Nathan. And Nathan, from the way he was fading into sleep even now, seemed to need someone to keep watch for him.

They fought, they made up again. Audrey was still missing. Friends turned into enemies. Enemies into friends?

There were stranger things in Haven.


End file.
